be mistaken--look again."

"No, sir, indeed there is no such name. I can't allow you to pass up."

"What! not Nicks?" we repeat, indignantly.

"Nicks, did you say, sir?"

"Yes, to be sure."

"Oh, yes, I have that name; but you said Bricks."

"No, I did not," growl we.

"Well, sir, I suppose it is all right; but if Mr. Nicks comes, you must
come out."

"Of course," we reply, ironically, as we push the curtain on one side,
and up we go.

At first we hardly know what we see. Chaos seems come again. On the
opposition benches Lord Stanley is seated; on the ministerial the genteel
Sir John Shelley is visible at one end, and the stout W. J. Fox at the
other. All is confusion and disorder. No one but the Speaker seems to
know what he is about. It is the hour devoted to private business, and
Mr. Forster is bringing up bills like a retriever. He hands his bills to
the clerks, while the Speaker, to an inattentive house, runs over their
titles, and declares that they are read a first, or second, or third
time, as the case may be. Then we hear him announce the name of some
honourable M.P., who immediately rises and reads a statement of the
petition he holds in his hand, with which he immediately rushes down and
delivers it to one of the clerks, and which thereupon the Speaker
declares is ordered to lie upon the table--but literally the petition is
popped into a bag. In the meanwhile let us look around. Just below us
is a small gallery for peers and ambassadors, and other distinguished
personages. On either side of the house are galleries, very pleasant to
sit, or lie, or occasionally sleep in, and by-and-bye we shall see in
them old fogies very red in the face, talking over the last bit of
scandal, and young moustached lords or officers, sleeping away the time,
to be ready, when the House breaks up, for

"Fresh fields and pastures new."

Opposite to us is the Reporters' Gallery. In the early days of
parliament reporting was a thing much condemned. Sir Simonds d'Ewes,
under the date March 5, 1641-2, gives us a special instance of this. Sir
Edward Alford, member for Arundel, had been observed taking notes of a
proposed declaration moved by Pym. Sir Walter Earle, member for
Weymouth, upon this objected that he had seen "some at the lower end
comparing their notes, and one of them had gone out." Alford having been
called back, and given up his notes to the Speaker, D'Ewes then
continues:--"Sir Henry Van